On the Mend
by pagerunner
Summary: Thane catches up with Shepard while she's frustrated at being temporarily out of commission - and agrees to help her out, in somewhat metaphorical fashion. Like you do. Shepard/Thane, somewhere late in ME2.


She was wearing nothing but her N7 hoodie when Thane came to find her - her hoodie, and the brace on her right leg, which she was bearing with much less grace than the comfy old sweatshirt. Despite Dr. Chakwas' orders that she try to relax, Thane saw within moments that she was doing a very poor job of it. She'd strewn the bed with datapads and mission logs, including the reports from the last assignment she'd had to send her crew on without her. For Shepard, who preferred the hands-on approach, being laid up like this - even if only briefly - was obviously cramping her style… and her patience.

He sympathized, although the image she presented was also pleasingly distracting, and he took a moment to appreciate it before she raised her head, silently prompting him.

"Commander Shepard," he said, masking any further expression with the polite bow of his head. "I've come to report."

She watched him over the rim of her datapad. "Do you always make your formal reports dressed like this?"

She had something of a point. After he'd returned to the ship and cleaned up, he'd opted for an outfit almost as casual as hers: only a lightweight black tunic and trousers, with his feet bare. He took the opportunity, however, for comparison. "You haven't exactly opted for dress blues this afternoon, either."

"Evening, ship-time." She put aside the datapad, looked around at the bed, and made a face. With a sweep of her braced leg that Dr. Chakwas probably would have frowned over, she kicked the mess to the floor. Thane only smiled. "You were gone a while."

"We got the job done."

"So I see, from the logs."

"Then I suppose I can keep the verbal report brief?"

"Please," Shepard said, half in a groan. "Not that the company isn't welcome, but I'm not sure I can deal with more administrivia right now…."

His mouth quirked again, more sympathetically. "How are you feeling?"

She made an exasperated gesture at her leg. "The exercises are going fine, it's mostly stopped hurting, Dr. Chakwas says I should be clear in a day or two, and that it's healing much, much faster than it would without all the cybernetics, lucky me, but…."

"Convalescence suits you poorly."

"_Uselessness_ suits me poorly," Shepard muttered. "I should not be spending my day reading paperwork in my damn bed."

"It's night, I thought you said."

"Very funny, Mr. Snark."

Thane stepped up, still smiling, and gathered her clutter off the floor. "I can't help but think… I certainly can't question your combat experience, but I spent even longer in intense physical training than you did. Risky engagements. Difficult conditions. I haven't always managed to escape injury. It's fortunately been rare-"

"Don't tell me we're about to start keeping score."

"-but at the start, I took it about as well as you're doing now," Thane continued, unfussed. He set aside the stack he'd collected. "Until Faryn insisted on teaching me meditation, that is. Eventually I became better at calming myself. Accepting the order of things. Finding more productive ways to channel my energy, and ideally focus it into healing."

"Sounds nice in theory. Although I'm still not sure I'm in the meditating mood."

"We could work on it together…."

"Thane," Shepard said, her voice pitched differently. He was standing very close beside her bed. "If I try to sit here with you and be all calm and zen and whatever, well…" Her eyes drifted up the length of his body. "I have to tell you, I really doubt it's going to work."

Thane caught Shepard's glance - and her intentions. "Oh, meditation _can _be used to stave off all sorts of… frustrations… if you must. I've had to do so myself upon occasion."

"Recent occasion?"

His glance drifted down again to her bare legs. "Possibly."

"Aren't there more direct ways to fix problems like that?"

"The direct approach has its appeal," Thane said softly. Shepard had just bent one knee, her foot braced against the mattress. The hoodie was long enough not to reveal everything, but the shadows alone were certainly suggestive. The fingers of his left hand twitched.

"And I've got more than one reason to favor it,"Shepard said. "I've had enough today of trying to be _calm, _while everyone else had all the fun. So how about you humor me with something a little more… cathartic?"

Thane made a small, low sound that made her shiver, and then sat beside her on the bed.

He had to admit he'd hoped she'd be in such a mood, but when presented with Shepard like this - so seemingly vulnerable, so unguarded - he still found himself awed. After that prompt of hers, though, he didn't hold much back. He kissed her, his mouth gentle but persuasive, then withdrew enough to watch her reaction as one hand slid up her muscled thigh. The warmth of her, the softness of her skin, was still almost unbelievable. Shepard shifted against the pile of pillows behind her, smiling lazily at him.

"That's a good start," she said, and twined her arms around him.

The next kiss lasted much, much longer.

They fit so well together - much better than he'd ever anticipated. It was tempting to let this moment linger, with her soft curves pressed against him and her tongue slipping in to meet his. The little moans and whispers in between, though, were enough to prompt him into more. His hand slid further up her leg, finding the firm curve of her backside and squeezing enough to make her chuckle before he pulled her directly atop him. She braced herself on the mattress, looking as if her leg didn't bother her at all.

_Good, _he thought, and let go a little bit more of his control, moving suggestively against her. Beneath his questing hands, Shepard sighed.

"Even better," she said breathlessly. Her eyes looked dilated; the taste of his kiss was already getting to her. Thane made a low, unabashedly possessive hum. "But why are you still wearing these?"

She plucked at his pants. Thane gave her his own lazy smile. "It's an excellent question. But with you there… I might require some assistance."

"Oh, really."

He slid her hand down to the clasps. She made a pleased sound, too, at the feel of him there. "Yes."

"Well, then," she said, and flicked open the clasp. With deliberate slowness, she slid the zipper down over the distinct swell beneath. Thane breathed in as deeply as he could, pressing up against her hand; at his eagerness she smirked, and deliciously squeezed. Then she hooked her fingers underneath the bands of his trousers and underwear instead, and started to tug.

When he arched his hips up again to help her, she bent down and gave his freed erection a long, teasing lick. Thane moaned and shivered. So did she, as the contact brought her even higher, but she kept herself in control.

"Be back for that," she murmured, smirking. Then she scooted down to get his pants the rest of the way off.

He didn't entirely wait for her return. While she tossed his clothes aside, he sat up and pulled the tunic over his head, too, so that when he caught her up in his arms again, only the soft cotton of that cozy old hoodie separated them.

In a strange sort of fashion, he liked it that way.

Shepard was smiling into the kiss, sitting up on her knees and poised just above him, one hand running along his scalp and sliding around until she could stroke the softer, sensitive ridges of his throat. Then she wriggled down further against him, and the teasing slide of her wet flesh made his whole body jolt - an uncharacteristically uncontrolled motion, and she knew it. She looked smug. "Shepard," he groaned. "By the gods-"

"If you want this… you could take me," she murmured into his mouth, making darkly satisfying images flood into his mind. "I know you could. But this time…."

She touched him, her fingers moving in a torturously intimate slide. After guiding him into place, she took him in with a twist of her hips and a long, slow sigh.

"My turn," she said, bending down to drink in his willing groan of pleasure.

She kept moving in slow, sensual rolls, almost rising free and then sinking back onto him, moaning at the thick pressure within. When he slid his hand up under the hoodie to cup one breast, running the pad of his thumb against the tightened nipple, she bit her lip and let her head fall back - but she didn't stop moving. Neither did he. His hips arched up to meet her on the next downthrust, and the cry she made made his whole body ache.

"Thane," she gasped. "I want-"

Oh, gods, _want. _The intensity of his own was clouding his thoughts, but he forced himself to ask, "What?"

"Your biotics." Sweat glistened on her forehead; her gaze was unfocused but her voice intense. "Touch me. Please."

He breathed her name hoarsely, unable to stop another thrust of his hips, but he held himself back just enough to do as she bid. Power gathered at his fingertips, crackling first across the sensitive skin of her breast and then continuing as he drew his hand down the tense muscles of her stomach. He could see the light glowing even through the fabric. Shepard twisted again, the movement making sensation pulse in his groin and reverberate through his entire body.

When his fingers reached the juncture of her thighs, she keened and began to shake.

Thane worried for a moment about her injured leg, as hard as she was trembling, but she started rocking even faster. Determination drove her, and the tension coiling through her body was so palpable that all he could do was keep touching her, keep thrusting deeper, try to keep himself from breaking too soon because she was so, so close-

He didn't even catch what finally set her off, but Shepard swore suddenly and threw her head back. Her muscles tightened around him in a sharp, ecstatic shudder. Thane drew his hand away before that jolt of sensation could rip though him, too, and overcharge his biotics - and that was the last thing he had enough presence of mind to do before his own orgasm took him, hard and fast and devastating.

When he could breathe again, Shepard had let herself go lax. She was curled up atop him, her sweaty hair tousled and a tired, satisfied smile on her lips. The slightest movement either of them made still made them both shiver pleasurably.

"Mmm," she murmured against his chest, listening to his racing heart. "That was worth it."

He had to agree. Thane wrapped one arm around her, his hand still tucked beneath the soft fabric. She chuckled softly and said, "Why'd you never take this off?"

"You looked too comfortable," he said simply.

Shepard shook with laughter. "We just fucked each other senseless and you're concerned about me being cozy?"

"Well. Under the circumstances... convalescing and all…."

She raised her head and smiled crookedly. "Convalescing, my ass. You just like me half-dressed and disheveled."

"Perhaps," he admitted, looking her over: dark-eyed and rumpled and utterly beautiful. "Well played."

"Mmm-hmm."

The smugness in her voice swiftly faded, though, for she was yawning. Thane helped her adjust until they were both settled with more ease upon the bed. Once there, she smiled again, more gently this time. "You were right about one thing, though," she admitted. "It is awfully comfortable. Especially with…you…."

Thane leaned forward and kissed her into silence before she could say the rest of it, letting the contented lassitude of her body afterward answer that for her. "I know," he said. "Now get some rest."

She burrowed deeper into the pillows. "Fine," she said around a yawn, in one more teasing reply. "Just as long as we both agree… I'll be the one ordering _you _around in the morning."

Considering the results of this evening's reports, all Thane could really do about that prospect was to smile.

"I'm counting on it, Commander," he told her, and stayed close as he watched Shepard fall asleep.


End file.
